Saturday, March 24, 2007

the jeremy tax

I have a friend whose pseudonym for the purposes of this anecdote is Cookie Smart. She sent me an e-mail this morning saying that she had just received a letter from the IRS that the name on her tax form didn't match the provided taxpayer ID number. Turns out that instead of filing her taxes as "Cookie Smart" she filed them as "Smart Cookie." She was e-mailing because she wanted to know if this is the sort of thing I would do. I told her that while I had never made that particular mistake, it did indeed sound like the sort of thing I would do, except for the fact that she'd already filed her taxes and it isn't even June yet.

I need an accountant.

I use the phrase "Jeremy Tax" for the amount of extra money I have to spend each year to solve problems caused by my absent-mindedness. The latest Jeremy Tax payment was for the cable for my digital camera I lost. Despite being missing for more than a week, the missing cable predictably turned up a few hours after I placed the order online.

2 comments:

Gwen said...

I frequently have to pay overdraft fees on my checking account because I just forget to deposit checks. I'll have more than enough money to cover all my outstanding checks, but somehow just not manage to get to the bank to deposit it and have to pay some multiple of $25 to cover all the checks that come through. This was much, much worse in the days before you could sign up for direct deposit of paychecks. I have been known to get charged a $25 fee for a $5 purchase when I had more than a thousand dollars in uncashed checks sitting on my desk.

I don't even want to know how much money I have spent on overdraft fees for checks I could have easily covered if only I managed to do things in a more efficient and timely manner.

Gwen said...

Also I have to pay to be a member of an auto club because at least once each year I will need its services when I do each of the following: run out of gas because I forget to check the gas gauge (this is becoming worse with the Hybrid, since I so rarely have to actually worry about buying gas) and leave the headlights on and run down the battery.